Ornithologists Carla Dove and Storrs Olson used 700- to 1,100-year-old feathers from a long extinct species of Hawaiian ibis to help determine the bird’s place in the ibis family tree. The feathers are the only known plumage of any of the prehistorically extinct birds that once inhabited the Hawaiian Islands. [...more]
A fragment of whale rib found in a North Carolina strip mine is offering scientists a rare glimpse at the interactions between prehistoric sharks and whales some 3- to 4- million years ago during the Pliocene. [...more]
This illustration by Carl Buell depicts Ocucajea picklingi (center) and Supayacetus muizoni (bottom), two ancient whales that lived off the Peruvian coast during the Eocene, between 56-34 million years ago. At top is an unnamed whale and the fossil penguin Perudyptes devriesi. Nicholas Pyenson, paleobiologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, helped discover [...] [...more]
Meet the Smithsonian's Matthew Carrano, curator of Dinosauria at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Matthew studies all things dinosaur, but focuses on the evolutionary history of predatory (meat eating) dinosaurs. [...more]
A new study on the dodo’s island home of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, paints a picture of this unusual bird as an intrepid survivor on par with the giant tortoise for its resiliency. [...more]
The fossil represents the youngest nodosaur ever discovered, and the only known specimen of a new genus and species of dinosaur that lived approximately 110 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous Era. [...more]
University of Florida and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute scientists describe a new 20-foot extinct species of crocodile discovered in the same Colombian coal mine with Titanoboa, the world’s largest snake. [...more]
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian is hosting a series of public satellite broadcasts featuring a multinational team of researchers, engineers and archaeologists who are working in Peru on the origins and engineering of the Inka Road of South America. [...more]
Scientists from the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center have found that fledgling catbirds living in the suburbs are extremely vulnerable. Almost 80 percent are killed by predators before they reach adulthood. Nearly half of the deaths are connected to domestic cats. The team studied catbird nests in 3 suburban neighborhoods in Maryland: Spring Park, Opal Daniels Park, and Bethesda. Learn more about this 2011 study by clicking here. (Catbird photo by Gerhard Hofmann)
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